Posts from April 2008

April 30, 2008

I recently discovered that I can add sub-pages to my blog (just like a real live Web site!), but at first I was at a loss as to what I could put on those pages. Surely not the newsy stuff that comprises my regular blog posts: more perennial stuff of continuous appeal.

Then more recently I've came across The Drama 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Plays of All Time by one Daniel S. Burt. The book has actually rekindled my interest in regular old non-musical plays. (Please don't think less of me, dear reader: I'm still hopelessly devoted to musicals.) I've been buying up the scripts to some of the plays that Burt lists, and having a grand old time discovering great playwrights old and new.

But Burt's book got me thinking about creating a list of my own: The Musical 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Musicals of All Time. I love lists, both reading through them and creating my own. But I discovered that the effort was a bit more challenging than I initially had thought. There simply aren't as many musicals as there are plays, let alone great musicals.

This is a simple fact of history: straight dramas have been around for literally thousands of years, but the musical, as we currently know it, didn't really begin to evolve until 1866 with The Black Crook. And most of what came after that, at least for the next 50 years or so, was unadulterated crap. We didn't really start to get musicals of any quality until the early part of the 20th century, and most of the musicals that we pay any attention to these days were written after 1940.

So I was at a slight disadvantage in compiling my list, but soldiered bravely on. And in the process I even came up with a list of 100 runners-up, and was then inspired to compile a running list of musicals that just plain outright suck (IMOHO). I consider all of these lists to be living documents: I've already made numerous changes, and will continue to do so as the spirit moves me.

The pages are listed on the sidebar to the right, or you can click through the links above. Take a look and let me know what you think. I would imagine there will be some consternation and uproar, but dialog is good. Just don't expect it to be a democratic process. As I say rather tactlessly in the introduction to my 100-best list, the criteria are mine, and if you disagree you're free to create your own. Then you can send it to me, and I can tell you you're full of beans.

Apparently the creators are confident enough in the show that they don't feel the need to wait to see what happens at the Goodspeed. Producer Bob Boyett told Playbill that 13 will begin New York performances in September with pretty much the same cast and crew as the Goodspeed production.

So the current list of musicals for the next Broadway season is as follows: [title of show], Shrek, Billy Elliot, A Tale of Two Cities, The Story of My Life, Pure Country, and now 13. That's quite an eclectic mix, including everything from overblown spectacle to plucky little shows that could. Of course, it's great that there are so many shows taking a chance on Broadway. But as this season clearly shows, there is such a thing as too many musicals, especially in the current economy. None of the current crop of tuners has broken out to become a bona fide hit. (Yet?)

I'll be seeing 13 at the Goodspeed next month. Look for my review here shortly thereafter.

April 27, 2008

This past Thursday, I caught the Boston stop of the national tour of The Drowsy Chaperone. Regular readers will no doubt recall my deep affection for this sweet and funny show, which I adored both times that I saw it on Broadway. (Read my reviews here and here.)

And while I remain a devout fan of the show itself, I have to say that the pacing for the tour production was a bit slow. The Broadway running time was 1:40, while the tour ran about 1:50. And when you're talking about comedy, those ten minutes make all the difference in the world, especially when there's no intermission.

There's something about tours, particularly when you've seen the original Broadway cast, that inevitably disappoints. I know this sounds elitist, but for some reason it's true. I think it's that people tend to prefer what they're used to. So perhaps it's not the fault of the admittedly talented cast of the Drowsy tour that I found most of them serviceable but undistinguished, with the notable exception of Jonathan Crombie as "Man in Chair." Crombie had just the right amount of quirkiness and vulnerability to make the part humorous and appealing.

The delightfully talented Nancy Opel was terrific as the eponymous chaperone, and employed some nice original touches during "As We Stumble Along," but for me no one will ever compare to Tony winer Beth Leavel. One original cast member who has joined the tour cast is Georgia Engel, who's just as adorable and ditsy as ever as Mrs. Tottendale.

There are some improvements that the tour makes over the original Broadway production. "Cold Feets" somehow never worked for me with Eddie Korbich and Troy Britton Johnson performing it, but Mark Ledbetter and Richard Vida, as the tour's Robert Martin and "best man" George, respectively, give Casey Nicholaw's tap choreography a looser and more fluid interpretation, and the result is much more freewheeling and energetic.

The tour has made some inevitable changes to the script and the staging. The joke about the Marquis Theater is gone: the one about the Morosco Theater being torn down and replaced by a hideous hotel, ironically the one in which the Marquis Theater is ensconced. And for the dumb-but-funny joke in which Aldolpho mispronounces "airship" as "airchip," someone has inexplicably changed the pronunciation to "airshit." It's not necessary and not funny. Also, the "Show Off" reprise no longer features the line "disappear through the floor," which is understandable because the Janet character doesn't. I've performed in the Opera House, and I know there's room below the floor, but perhaps the requisite hydraulics were too expensive for the tour.

But I remain a steadfast admirer of of this wonderful little show. It has many detractors, including a large number who felt the need to spew invective on Amazon.com. But, to quote the Man in Chair (a part I eagerly hope to play one day), "It does what a musical is supposed to do. It takes you to another world and gives you a little tune to hum for when you're feeling blue."

If you haven't seen it, go. Just go. (See my review here) From the title and the plot description, you might get the impression that this show is a dull depression-fest, but it's actually quite lively and uplifting. Sure it's dark, but so are The Threepenny Opera and The Cradle Will Rock, two shows that bear strong comparison with Adding Machine. This is easily the best new musical of the season, on or off Broadway, and anyone who cares about the future of musical theater owes it to himself/herself to take in this subversively brilliant show.

April 24, 2008

Proposition #1: It's fun to hate Ben Brantley. There's something about the position of lead drama critic at the New York Times that seems to invite scorn, but there's also something about Brantley himself that makes him that much easier to hate. I mean, check out his NYT headshot. This is the photo that he chose to portray himself to his reading public. Even so, he's the most powerful theater critic in the country, and whether he's spot-on or way off base, what he says can have a huge impact on the success of a particular show.

Proposition #2: Yeah, Brantley's powerful, but that doesn't mean I want to read his every word in order to find out whether he liked the show. Also, he's not the only theater critic out there, and it's always fruitful to seek out a variety of opinions rather than relying on one dyspeptic scribe. Wouldn't it be great if there was a Web site that collected the opinions of all the different drama critics into one easy-to-understand format? Kind of like what Metacritic does for movies, books, DVDs, and video games.

Well, now there is. It's called www.didhelikeit.com. The site collects the available reviews from the major critics and represents the basic upshot for each with a simple graphic element -- the Ben-ometer, modeled after old Benny boy. The site appears to be a work in progress: the site's creator apparently has plans to eventually include Off-Broadway shows as well. But it's a valiant effort overall, and a welcome addition to my list of must-see theater sites.

April 23, 2008

So, the awards season has started in earnest with the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League nominations. All you have to know about the former is that Young Frankenstein got ten nominations, the most of any production. Reason enough for me to pay no additional attention to the Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Then yesterday we got the Drama League nominations, and here are the musicals that were nominated for "Distinguished Production of a Musical":

Um...so was there any new musical that wasn't nominated? Well, The Little Mermaid. That's got to be a slap in the face for Disney. "Yeah, we'll nominate just about anything, but even we draw the line at The Little Mermaid." In the Heights isn't listed because it was nominated last year, although it lost out to Spring Awakening. And there were certainly some smaller, under-the-radar musicals like Yanks and 10 Million Miles that the Drama League missed, but I think you get my basic point.

Do nominations and awards really matter? Well, not so much for the shows that have closed. But there does tend to be a strong correlation between the shows that win and the shows that run, although there are numerous exceptions. Of course, the only awards that really matter in this respect are the Tonys, the nominations for which come out May 13th. According to the poll that I've been running over to the right for the past few weeks, my readers seem to think that the four nominated shows will be In the Heights, Xanadu, Passing Strange, and A Catered Affair, although Cry-Baby is running a very close fifth.

April 22, 2008

This may come as a shock to some, but there are opportunities to take in quality musical theater outside of New York City. I must confess a personal bias against regional productions, but this is just outright snobbery on my part. In an effort to ameliorate this injustice, I've been looking for opportunities to expand my musical horizons beyond the confines of Manhattan.

Toward that end, next month I'll be taking a road trip to the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Conn. to take in two shows: Happy Days and Jason Robert Brown's 13. Yeah, I know: from the ridiculous to the potentially sublime. But I figure I owe it to my readers and my students to sample the full gamut of musical offerings. Of course, if it weren't for 13, I probably wouldn't be making the trip, but as I was ordering my tickets, I noticed that Happy Days would be playing the Goodspeed main stage on the same day. I figured, as long as I'm down there...

The world premier of 13 took place last year at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, where the show met with mixed-to-positive reviews, with the best notice coming from Variety. From what I can glean, the show appears to be about the pressures of fitting in at that wonderful/terrible age of thirteen, but there do appear to be some rather melodramatic elements to the plot. JRB's body of work thus far has been pretty darned serious (Songs for a New World, Parade, The Last Five Years), but within those shows he has proven himself adept at crafting more light-hearted fare. Something tells me that, even though 13 is billed as a "musical comedy," there will be a very serious streak that runs through it.

After its LA engagement, 13 was then supposed to move to New York, but apparently JRB wanted to make some changes before that happened. Is this Goodspeed run another stop on the road to Broadway? Time will tell. The Goodspeed certainly has a time-honored tradition of producing shows that would later make it to New York, including Shenandoah, Annie, and Man of La Mancha. It's interesting to note that the Goodspeed production of 13 will have a new cast and creative team, although that doesn't necessarily mean that the original actors and staff got dumped.

And then there's Happy Days. I must confess, I'm not expecting great things. The show has a book by Garry Marshall, who produced the original "Happy Days" TV series and wrote many of its episodes. The score is by Paul Williams. Yes, that Paul Williams. The short guy from the 70s and 80s who wrote the songs for "The Muppet Movie" and "Bugsy Malone." Talented guys, to be sure, but relatively untried in the realm of musical theater. The Goodspeed produced a workshop production of Happy Days last year. Now, after an apparently successful run at the Paper Mill Playhouse, the show returns to Goodspeed to open its current season.

Is Happy Days headed for a New York run? Something tells me it isn't. I have a feeling that Happy Days is going to find a very vibrant life in regional theater and then join the upper pantheon of shows that high schools do in rapid rotation: Grease, Bye Bye Birdie, Footloose, etc. But, then, I could be wrong. It's happened before.

I'll be seeing both shows on May 24th. Look for my reviews here shortly thereafter.

Bounce has been...well...bouncing around for years, and many Sondheim-ites had given up hope of it ever making it to New York. The show emerged in the late 90s under the title Wise Guys, with wunderkind Sam Mendes attached as director. The show was also known as Gold! at one point in its gestation. Then Hal Prince helmed a production under its current name that played the Goodman Theater in Chicago and the Kennedy Center in DC. Word got around that the show was...eh-eh, and plans to bring the show to New York evaporated.

Sondheim always has a way of confounding expectations in his choice of subject matter: post-impressionist paintings, razor-wielding psychopaths, western encroachment upon imperial Japan, etc. But somehow even Sondheim fanatics couldn't wrap their minds around a musical that focused on real-estate development in early-20th-century Florida. (This is not, however, the first musical to use that setting: the early Marx Brothers vehicle The Cocoanuts mined similar territory, to decidedly different effect.)

The show that made it onto the Bounce CD, released in 2004, left many listeners -- this one included -- underwhelmed. The score is most definitely Sondheim, but it feels a bit warmed-over and perfunctory. There's nothing that really sticks out as brilliant or evocative. It's just very serviceable and entirely forgettable, like much of Sondheim's work on his recent updated version of The Frogs.

Don't get me wrong: I will definitely be seeing the show at the Public. But I will approach the production with an ineluctably jaundiced eye. Here's hoping Sondheim, Doyle and librettist John Weidman are able to tap into that ineffable alchemy of the musical-theater development process and create something extraordinary.

So, Romantic Poetry would seem to be a stretch for the MTC, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is interesting that the two musicals that the organization has produced since it moved to Broadway in the 1990s have had pretty reputable creative staffs. Say what you want about LoveMusik, it looked great on paper. What theater company would turn down the chance to produce an original Hal Prince musical, with a book by Pulitzer Prize, Academy Award, and Tony Award winner Alfred Uhry?

And now comes Romantic Poetry, which the MTC describes as a "crackpot musical romance." The show, as far as I can tell, will be Shanley's first musical. Anyone who is only familiar with Shanley from his recent work might think this is a bit of a leap, but remember this is the guy who wrote "Moonstruck." (Now why hasn't that been made into a musical?) This will be Krieger's first Broadway outing since Side Show, a show of which I am not a fan. But if it sucks -- and in my humble opinion it does -- it's not because of Krieger's score, which is stirring and heartfelt. If only the atrocious lyrics were even half as good.

So, I'm cautiously optimistic. Romantic Poetry will play at MTC Stage 1 at City Center, which is technically Off-Broadway. If things work out, might we see yet another Off-Broadway musical transfer to a Broadway house?

April 16, 2008

A lot of us are still smarting from the contentious and prolonged Broadway stagehands' strike during the recent holiday season, so it's only natural that the prospect of another work stoppage on the Rialto would cause apprehension.

The reason for this optimism: the issues at hand are far less controversial than those that were at issue in the stagehand negotiations. All the really dicey stuff got ironed out in 2004, when Equity came oh-so-close to authorizing a strike. This time, they'll just be working out some relatively minor details about touring productions.

But, as Robertson relates, we're not totally out of the woods yet strike-wise. Equity will begin negotiations with the League of Resident Theaters later this year. Those include the Broadway nonprofits such as Lincoln Center and the Roundabout. As you may recall, those theaters were able to remain up and running during the strike because they have separate union agreements. Might there be another strike looming on the distant horizon? Or was Robertson just looking for a dramatic kicker to his NYT piece? Time will tell.

Our only consolation: no sequel in the history of musical theater has ever been successful. Of course, that doesn't mean a musical sequel could never be successful. But something tells me We Will Continue to Rock You, or whatever it winds up being called, isn't going to be the show that changes theater history.

April 14, 2008

I haven't done a round-up of upcoming musicals in a while, so I figured I'd weigh in on some recently announced tuners, and their prospects for success.

PURE COUNTRYPersonnel: The show will have a book and direction by Peter Masterson (The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public). The book will also be by Rex McGee, who wrote the 1992 film of the same name. The score will have music by Steve Dorff (not to be confused with hottie actor Stephen Dorff), and lyrics by John Bettis. Status: A New York workshop is planned for late April. An earlier developmental reading of the show occurred in May 2007 at New World Stages in New York. Current plans have the "world premiere" of the show taking place on Broadway in 2009. Synopsis: "The story of a country-music superstar at the height of his career. When the pressures start to take their toll, and he walks out of an overblown concert tour, his search begins to find himself — and the love he left behind. Pure Country is about the price of fame and one man's journey home."My Take: Opening cold in New York? Danger, Will Robinson! Very few shows, if any, go that route anymore. They usually have regional productions to work out the kinks, or make a start Off-Broadway. I smell trouble from the start. I have very little personal interest in country music, but if the show is well executed it could help expand my musical horizons. I'm certainly a big Whorehouse fan. (Wait, that came out wrong...)

THE STORY OF MY LIFEPersonnel: Music and lyrics by Neil Bartram, book by Brian Hill. Richard Maltby, Jr. will direct. Status: Tony Award winner Brent Carver starred in the world premiere in Toronto at CanStage in the fall of 2006. The show is currently scheduled to begin performances on Broadway in January 2009. Synopsis: "Thomas Weaver, a successful writer, returns to his hometown to deliver the eulogy at the funeral of his lifelong friend, Alvin Kelby. Unable to find the appropriate words to celebrate his friend's life, Thomas pages through the story of their lives together, from their unconventional introduction to their ultimate estrangement, in search of his role in his friend's untimely death." My take: I'm always interested in what Richard Maltby is up to. As both a director and a lyricist, he's responsible for some truly enjoyable theater, such as Ain't Misbehavin' (direction) and Baby (lyrics). But he's also inflicted both Ring of Fire (direction) and Big (lyrics) upon an unsuspecting public. The subject matter seems earnest, but in a good way, and word has it we may be looking at a very promising new writing team in Bartram and Hill.

GHOST BROTHERS OF DARKLAND COUNTYPersonnel: Stephen King and John MellencampStatus: The show will receive a spring 2009 regional production at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, followed by a possible Broadway run.Synopsis: "In 1957, in the small town of Lake Belle Reve, Mississippi, a tragedy took the lives of two brothers and a young girl. During the next forty years, the events of that night become a local legend. But legend is often just another word for lie. Joe McCandless knows what really happened; he saw it all. The question is whether he can bring himself to tell the truth to save his own troubled sons, and whether the ghosts will help him, or tear the McCandless family apart." My take: In a recent interview in Rolling Stone, Mellencamp says, "If it goes well in
Atlanta, then we'll come to Broadway. If it don't go well in Atlanta,
we're done." Pretty much says it all, huh? Mellencamp also mentions that "Somebody came and watched the last reading that we had in New York and
reviewed it. The review said this is a musical that men will enjoy.
Unheard of, the guy said." Um, I think we might be talking about "straight" men here, huh? Yeah, this could give the breeders something to see on the Rialto besides Spamalot.

Regular readers will no doubt recall my strong reaction to seeing Next to Normal. Essentially, although I had problems with the execution of the show, my primary contention was with Yorkey's apparent message that the central female character was better off without psychiatric intervention. I took particular exception to his apparent stance on electroconvulsive thearapy (ECT), as well as to the horrific and tasteless way the show portrayed ECT.

After coming across my admittedly harsh review of the show, librettist Yorkey sent me an angry email. His lengthy missive started off reasonable, but eventually descended into argumentum ad hominem. I didn't want to dignify Yorkey's screed with a direct response, but I'll issue it here in open-letter style:

Mr. Yorkey,

I applaud your efforts to craft a show that addresses the serious issue of mental illness. But nothing in your email to me addressed my central concern. Are you, indeed, saying that your main female character is better off without drugs or ECT? If so, then I stand by my review. If not, then your show, in the form I saw it at the Second Stage Theater, does not accurately reflect your point.

I can understand if you'd rather leave that judgment to the viewer. But, as currently constructed, your show gives the strong impression that you advocate a "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" approach to mental illness. Again, if that's your intention, then I couldn't disagree with you more.

Respectfully yours,

Chris Caggiano

In the process of ripping me a new one, Yorkey mentioned that the show was a work in progress. Fair enough. Let's hope that, as the show progresses, Yorkey and director Michael Greif can find a way to to bring the show some clarity and balance.

April 09, 2008

The new Broadway musical Passing Strange will receive a cast recording from Ghostlight Records, but it will be a bit different from your typical album of showtunes. This is appropriate, given that the show itself is a different breed of cat: a hybrid of a rock concert and a through-line musical. (Read my review.)

The show's cast album will be a bit of an amalgam as well. Rather than heading into a studio to record the score, the cast and band will have a live recording session on April 15th at the Belasco Theater, where the show is playing. The cast will perform the songs, without any costumes or lighting, before a live audience of fans of the show.

According to Stew, co-author and star of Passing Strange, the hope is to create more than just a live-show document or a studio recording. "We are
aiming for a freaky hybrid of the two," he said in a statement. "The audience will be in on the
process, witnessing it. Heidi Rodewald and I have always tried to bring
the spontaneity of live performance into our studio recordings." To hear four studio cuts from the show, check out the Passing Strange Web site.

Tickets are $20 cash at the door, and all of the proceeds will go to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. That's a lot of good karma: getting the fans involved, and donating the proceeds to a great cause. All the more reason to see the show if you haven't already, or to see it again if you have. The show is still struggling at the box office: the weekly grosses are heading in the right direction, but attendance has all too often been at less than half of capacity.

Kritzerland is now accepting online orders for early shipping starting in early May; the street date will be in late May. The CD release will be a limited edition: the company is only printing 3,000 copies, and "when they're gone, they're gone," according to the Kritzerland Web site.

Anyone who's never heard Sondheim's score is in for a treat: in addition to the glorious ballads listed above, there are some terrific up-tempo numbers, including "If You Can Find Me I'm Here" and "When." The story is weird, bordering on creepy: a writer takes up residence in a department store after hours, only to find that a whole subculture of people have beaten him to the punch. And there's a really bittersweet, O. Henry-style ending.

Brigadoon is certainly not an unknown commodity: there have already been four Broadway revivals of the show in 1950, 1957, 1963, and 1980. However, the longest run of these four was only 133 performances. Reviews for the 1980 production were kind, but whereas in 1947 the show had seemed charming, some thirty years later it was downright precious.
Vincent Minnelli's dull movie version of "Brigadoon" takes out some of the best songs, and spends too much time giving Gene Kelly something to dance about.

The book could certainly use some revising.
[SPOILER ALERT: If you've never seen the show, skip the next two paragraphs.] There's a terrific sense of time and place in the show, but there's also an awful lot
that's hard to swallow. For instance, Tommy Albright takes an awfully
long time catching on to the central conceit. And when one character threatens to destroy the central miracle of the show by leaving the town, he meets with a very convenient "accidental" death. "We were chasing him
and he fell and hit his head on a rock. Honest."

And then there's the ending, which is just plain ridiculous, a deus ex machina if ever there was one: the strength of Tommy's love wills the bridge to Brigadoon to come back into existence. The sage Mr. Lundie explains: "You shouldna be too surprised, lad. I told ye when ye love someone deeply, anythin' is possible. Even miracles." Horse hockey.

April 06, 2008

Suddenly I'm a lot more interested in seeing the upcoming Encores presentation of No, No, Nanette. In fact, I pretty much have to see it: one of my former Boston Conservatory students, Ryan Malyar, just got cast in the ensemble.

Ryan was a member of my first class of freshmen, essentially my out-of-town tryout for the course, during which I ironed out a lot of the bumps. (Some bumps, of course, remain: I always consider the course a work in progress.) In deference to Ryan's guinea-pig status alone, I guess I owe him one. But he's also a very talented guy, and I greatly look forward to seeing him perform alongside Sandy Duncan, Rosie O'Donnell, Beth Leavel, and Fred Willard.

Apparently, the City Center concert version of No, No, Nanette will follow Burt Shevelove's script from the 1971 revival of the show and not the (presumably creaky by today's standards) original book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. The choreography will be by the wonderful Randy Skinner: as I said in my review of the Boston production of White Christmas, I could watch an entire evening of Skinner's tap choreography. Until such an event occurs, his work in Nanette will likely tide me over. (Ryan informs me that Rosie has been in tap camp for weeks in preparation. The mind reels.)

Coincidently, I just picked up a copy of The Making of No, No, Nanette by one Don Dunn, which chronicles the tumultuous development process that the show went through prior to its 1971 Broadway bow. The original 1925 production went through a similarly stormy tryout: it toured the country for two years, and in the process nearly the entire show changed. Producer H. H. Frazee at one point reportedly locked composer Vincent Youmans and lyricists Otto Harbach and Irving Caesar in a room and told them not to come out until they had written two hits: they emerged with "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy."

I guess this is all a message from the cosmos that it's time for me to bone up on my No, No, Nanette knowledge. But here's an interesting tidbit that I already do know: Nanette spawned a less successful sequel titled Yes, Yes, Yvette. I kid you not. More evidence that musical sequels aren't really a good idea.

April 04, 2008

It looks as though I may be alone in my views on South Pacific, both the show and the current revival. Well, if not alone, then in a significant minority. The Lincoln Center Theater has announced that its critically lauded production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific will now play an open-ended run at the Vivian Beaumont. The show was originally to have played a limited engagement, with a June 22nd closing date. See Steve on Broadway for a compendium of the rapturous critical response to the production, which opened officially last night.

The cast recording for the revival will be released May 27th. Of course, I'll be getting it: I get everything. I'm actually looking forward to hearing Paulo Szot again on "This Nearly Was Mine," which was one of the highlights of the production for me. And Kelli O'Hara may just be the most appealing female Broadway star we currently have, with all due respect to the wonderful Sutton Foster.

But, what can I say, I just don't like the show. Never have, and likely never will. Although most of my fellow bloggers, whom I met with last weekend in NYC, were firmly in the "rapture" camp when in came to South Pacific, I did meet a few like-minded scribes who shrugged and said, "What's the big deal?" I certainly don't begrudge the show its success: it's a handsome production, and features a terrificly talented cast.

And I'd much rather see something like South Pacific become a hit than, say, Mamma Mia! or the current revival of Grease, which Michael Riedel refers to as "the worst show in the history of theater" and "an unparalleled assault on Western civilization and its values." Methinks Mr. Riedel is being hyperbolic, although perhaps not. But it will be interesting to see if the South Pacific revival can eke out a run that's even close to that of the 1,925-performance run of the original show.

This really seems to be the year of the underdog, at least in terms of Broadway musicals. The Rialto is currently chockablock with musicals that started Off-Broadway (Passing Strange, In the Heights) and small unassuming shows that began their lives in regional theaters (A Catered Affair, Glory Days).

Joining that group will be [title of show], an Off-Broadway hit at the Vineyard Theater, which will open at Broadway's Lyceum Theater in July. This will be too late for Tony consideration for the current season (the theater is currently hosted a limited engagement of Macbeth with sexy sexagenarian Patrick Stewart), but that's probably just as well, since the musical field this season is already pretty crowded.

I wasn't able to see [title of show] at the Vineyard, but I heard great things about it, and I'm eager to see the show on Broadway. It will also be my first time in the Lyceum, one of only four Broadway houses I've yet to enter. The others are the Winter Garden, the Broadway, and the Longacre, but I should be able to cross those last two off my list when I take in Shrek and Boeing-Boeing. I'm going to have a wait a while on the Winter Garden, at least until Mamma Mia closes.

This was my first time at City Center, as well as my first Encores concert. I'm not really sure why I haven't attended one of these concerts before: nothing really grabbed my interest, I guess, at least not to the point where I'd give up one of my precious show slots to something that wasn't an on-Broadway musical. But now that I've been getting down to New York on a more consistent basis, I'm getting a chance to see more ancillary stuff, including concerts, Off-Broadway, and even straight plays.

As I posted last week, I was intrigued by the bright and cheery artwork Encores was using to promote Juno. From what I had heard about the show, I knew it was a bit of a depression-fest. Well, Marc Blitzstein's score is simply terrific, with so many glorious elements to it. I'm very familiar with Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock, and lately I've been listening to his challenging Regina, but I was unprepared for the tunefulness and brio of Blitzstein's Juno score. Much like Kurt Weill, Blitzstein proves himself at adept at both serious arty scores and lighter musical-comedy fare.

Ah, but therein lies the main problem with Juno, which is its lack of balance. Juno tries too hard to be a musical comedy, which makes the tragedy discordant. Although the opening number "We're Alive" clearly sets a somber tone, the rest of the
first act and the beginning of the second act play like your typical
1950s musical comedy. The shifts in tone are abrupt and jarring, although this may be a function of David Ives' concert adaptation of Joseph Stein's original book.

Another inconsistency is the use of dance. I've seen a lot of online chatter about the show's "one-armed ballet," in which Juno's doomed son, who lost an arm fighting the British, dances out his terror at being targeted by the IRA and his guilt at ratting out one of his friends. The ballet certainly seemed to go over well, but I found it to be another indication of the uneven nature of the show: there's no ballet anywhere else in the show, which makes its use in the middle of the second act, and then never again, somewhat unsettling.

Again, I'm not sure if the concert version of the script added to the show's problems, but as presented by Encores, Juno has a number of insufficiently justified plot points, to wit:

- The burgeoning love between the daughter and the British solicitor comes out of nowhere- There's nothing to justify the Brit later becoming a jerk and abandoning the now-pregnant daughter- We're not really clear on what exactly the son did to get him in trouble with the IRA, and why he did it

But as I said, the Blitzstein score is a glorious discovery for me, and two key performances made this concert a more-than-engaging experience: Celia Keenan-Bolger was lovely and passionate as the daughter, rendering the popular ballad "I Wish it So" with fervor and grace. And the glorious Victoria Clark was a knockout as the titular Juno, although I would imagine that Clark's portrayal was a very different from that of the original star, Shirley Booth. Clark most definitely did not play the part for laughs.